


Now Comes The Cold

by crossingwinter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 18:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4575036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How many vows has he sworn? And how many has he failed to keep?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now Comes The Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Benjen Stark stumbles back to the Wall after the battle and is elected Lord Commander. (Bonus points for Benjen and Jon bonding and talking about what's happened to their family and what Jon did re: the wildlings)

He could be dreaming. It would not be the first time. It is easy to dream of it.  
  
The Wall is weeping today, glistening in the daylight, iridescent, like a pearl, like a diamond, like armor that glitters in the dark.  _Press on_.  
  
He presses on. On and on, day after day, and he could be dreaming still, could be trapped in the ice again, staring up through a clear cold sheet over a foot thick as they walk above him, keeping him alive  _why alive why alive why?_  He could be dreaming. Why would he be gone? How could he have escaped them? Surely his mind has gone now.  
  
And yet he sees the Wall, and it is weeping.  
  
 _Even Walls weep, Lyanna. Did you know that? Did you, sister?_  
  
Ned had told him she’d wept to see his face again. She’d wept and bled and made him promise.  _You must promise too, Ben._  
  
 _Why are you telling me, then?_  
  
 _You are a man of vows, and she’d want you to know. You knew her best._  
  
 _I never told anyone she ran off. I never told anyone she went with him gladly._  
  
His mind is going, he thinks. He cannot tell if it is true or false, what he sees before his own eyes. Is he asleep, seeing what he wishes to see when he wakes, or is he awake, dreading what he’ll see when he sleeps. In his dreams—are they dreams?—there are Others hunting him.  _Why alive? Why did they let me go?_  
  
 _Stark. Stark. Stark. The one with the long face had said, pointing to him after they’d slain Flowers. Stark. Stark. Stark. He’d had a long face and eyes like ice chips and Benjen had been afraid. Only his father’s eyes had ever looked like ice chips._  
  
 _Dearest Ben, Brandon and Father are dead._  
  
 _Dearest Ben, I am calling the banners. We ride to war to crown Robert._  
  
 _Dearest Ben, I ride for Riverrun to wed Catelyn Tully._  
  
 _Dearest Ben, You promised not to betray me. I’ve gone. I won’t say where, but just know that I went. I wasn’t taken. I went._  
  
 _I was taken. I went and I was taken._  
  
 _Stark._  
  
A solitary blast from a horn.  
  
Ranger returning.  
  
Stark returning.

* * *

 

When he wakes, he is not alone.  
  
“Maester Aemon,” he breathes. He must be awake. He never dreams of Aemon. Only of Ned and Lya and sometimes Brandon and often times Flowers’ blood on the snow.  
  
“First Ranger,” Maester Aemon says. His voice is creaky, the voice of an old, tired man.  
  
“How long?” he asks.  
  
The maester blinks blind eyes. “You were asleep four days. You were gone more than a year.”  _More than a year._  
  
 _Stark. Stark. Stark._  
  
It all floods back to him, every memory, every dread. Wars to come, wars long dead and back again. Dead and back again. Dead and going home. “Where’s the Lord Commander?” Benjen says, sitting up. “I must speak with him.”  
  
“Lord Commander Mormont is dead,” the maester says sadly and Benjen feels his eyes go wide.  
  
“Dead?” he breathes.  
  
“Dead.” Maester Aemon reaches to the side of Benjen’s bed. There is a tray of food—cold porridge and salt pork. He nudges the tray towards Benjen and without a word, Benjen takes it and wolfs it down. “After you disappeared, the Lord Commander led a great ranging. There was a massacre at the Fist of the First Men, and he led the survivors back to the Wall. He was slain in a mutiny of your brothers at Craster’s Keep.”  
  
Benjen’s mouth is too full of food to ask the next question, but Maester Aemon senses his curiosity and answers it. “We are locked in the midst of a choosing. Only a few contestants remain, though there were enough to pause and hear what you had to say. What news you brought back from your ranging. King Stannis grinds his teeth, but—”  
  
“King Stannis?”  
  
Maester Aemon sighs. “There is much you do not know. I am sorry—so sorry. Your brother Eddard is dead, and his son Robb, and his wife Catelyn.” And he tells him all.

* * *

He wants to go to Jon in his confinement. Lya would have wanted him to. Lyanna was the only sister he’d ever had—surely that mattered more than his hundreds of brothers.  
  
But Jon’s his brother too, now. Jon has said his words. A nephew and a brother.  _It sounds a thing of Targaryens._  It is not a thought that makes him smile.  
  
He does not go to Jon first, though. He swore to be the watcher, the horn, the sword in the darkness. So he goes to the choosing in new blacks that hang loose on his gaunt frame. He must look a corpse. At least his face is not mottled and bloodless. At least he still has a mind of his own.  
  
“Welcome back, Brother Benjen.” “What news, Brother Benjen?” “Where were you, Brother Benjen?”  
  
They watch him, wait for him to speak, and his throat is suddenly very dry. He reaches for a mug, but finds that it is empty, and looks around. A boy, a steward whose name he does not know, fills the mug with brown ale and he drinks heavily from it, thinking carefully.  
  
Brandon had always had a way of winning the hearts of men, and Ned had always been so honest that men believed every word he’d spoken. Lya had had a way with words, a way of lying and making everyone believe her, even when she was spinning falsehoods so audacious that one could scarcely believe she dared.  _Lya the liar. And we all lied for you._  Ben had never had her way with words, or Brandon’s way with men, or Ned’s obvious stalwart nature. But he must have them all now.  
  
 _Or they’ll think I’m mad. Am I mad?_  
  
“Brothers,” Benjen says, then coughs, clearing phlegm from his throat. “I hear I am not the first of my party to return to you.”  
  
A shiver crosses the room, and he is glad. That, at least, he had started well.  
  
“I hear that some of you have seen the dead walk—that you’ve fought the dead.”  
  
“We fought the wildlings,” comes a voice—Wynton Stout. He had not heard his voice in a long while. “Thousands of them beneath the Wall.” He heard some murmurs. The door in the back of the hall opens, and he sees several men enter. They are not in black.  _Not brothers._  
  
“Your nephew rode with them,” he hears Alliser Thorne call out. “Lord Snow. Bastard blood turned him craven. He slew Qorin Halfhand in cold blood.”  
  
There was another murmur and a grumble. Disagreement within the ranks.  _Never suffer disagreement in your ranks, Brandon, or they’ll split and turn on you._  
  
 _Your nephew Robb._  
  
 _Ned’s heir?_  
  
 _Yes, Lord Eddard’s heir. He was slain at the Twins. Massacred by House Frey and House Bolton._  
  
 _House Bolton?_  
  
 _House Bolton. Lord Roose, it is said, drove a knife through his heart._  
  
Benjen wears his father’s voice. Lord Rickard’s lordly voice, like ice, like a growling wolf. “Am I responsible for my nephew, Lord Thorne? I was under the impression he was under your care while I was ranging.”  
  
He sees Thorne flush, and the men turn back to him. There are no grumbles or murmurs this time. “I have heard of your battle with the Wildlings, of the glorious victory brought about by King Stannis.” He inclines his head towards the door. He had never once met King Robert’s brother. But he remembers Robert Baratheon well.  
  
 _She’s beautiful, Ned. Beautiful. More beautiful than I deserve. And I’ll treat her well, I promise. Like a lady should be treated, gods be good._  
  
 _I do not like him, Ben. I do not want him. I was promised, but it wasn’t_  my  _promise_.  
  
“They’ll not threaten the kingdoms again.”  
  
“They are steel to our throat!” calls another. Another grumble.  
  
“Steel perhaps,” Benjen says, with Brandon’s voice this time, “but unbeaten. We are their anvil. I have greater fear of the hammer than I do of the unbeaten steel.”  
  
The hall does not murmur now. Everyone’s eyes are on him.  _And now is when they’ll think I’m mad_.  
  
“They flee the hammer, brothers. They do not want the beating. Nor do I envy it. But it is the Wall that protects the realms of men from the hammer that comes. And it comes. And it will strike the anvil, and try to break us. Break it. What did thousands of wildlings sound like?”  
  
No one replies.  
  
“What will thousands of dead sound like, led by Others on ice spiders?”  
  
 _Stark. Stark. Stark._  
  
“Winter is coming,” he says quietly. Now with Ned’s voice. “It is a promise, not a boast. The nights grow longer. Now comes the cold that creeps down from the north, and with it comes—”  
  
“Nightmares and children’s tales,” says a man that Benjen cannot recognize mulishly. “I’ve heard enough of one Stark’s lies. I don’t need another’s.” The man stands. He is short and paunchy—southron. He knows nothing of winter, much less winter beyond the wall. “Brothers, this man is a traitor’s brother. His nephew’s a traitor. I’ve had enough of lying Starks. I don’t know about you.”  
  
A few men make appreciative noises. But they are few, compared to the louder hushing that fills the room. Then, to his surprise, Cottor Pyke stands up. “Benjen Stark’s blood runs blacker than yours. I’ll hear his lies over your preening, Slynt.”  
  
So this is Janos Slynt.  _I’ve heard enough of one Stark’s lies. Tell me, Slynt, what do you know of Ned’s lies?_  
  
“I’ve led the goldcloaks!” Slynt hollers. “I know well what it is to—”  
  
“Have you ever been beyond the Wall, Lord Slynt?” Benjen demands. Like Lyanna.  
  
 _I hate them, Ben. They’re cruel foolish bullies who care nothing for duty or honor or goodness. I’ll impale them on their pride._  
  
“I haven’t been, no,” Slynt says through gritted teeth.  
  
“There are no streets to patrol up here. No criminals to round up and behead. No king’s laws to uphold. Only cold, and darkness, and snow—all so strong as to break a man, soul and spirit. Have you seen a man with frostbite? Have you smelled a burning man and felt your stomach roll with hunger? Have you feared the hunger of wolves or bears or shadowcats?  
  
“This isn’t King’s Landing. And what comes now is a greater threat to the realms of men than anything the lords to our south can know.”  
  
He does not know whose voice he uses next. “Death is coming. Darkness and cold, to be sure. But death. And when death comes, we’ll not rest. Why rest when we can be raised and sent to battle, will-less and unbreakable? The hammer comes. We are the anvil. We must not break.”  
  
“Stark. Stark. Stark.” At first he thinks it’s in his mind. But then he hears the pounding of fists on tables. “Stark. Stark. Stark.” Louder and louder it grows. “Stark. Stark. Stark.” And tablets rain down in kettles and Benjen Stark who was never raised for battle, never raised to lead, never thought of, always forgotten, the last and least of Lord Rickard’s pups, stands as Lord Commander.  
  
He nods, but he does not smile.

* * *

It is late before he goes to Jon. He finds his nephew sitting by the window of the tiny room they’d given him, looking down on the yards.  
  
Jon smiles at the sight of him, and gets to his feet. “Maester Aemon told me you’d come back.” He steps towards Benjen, then pauses, as if unsure if he is allowed to hug his uncle.  
  
 _I promised her he’d be my son, Ben. That I’d love him like my own._  
  
It’s his smile that isn’t Lyanna’s.  
  
Benjen hugs him quickly, and rests a hand on Jon’s shoulder.  
  
“What have you done?” he asks wearily, and they both sit, and Jon tells him everything.  
  
“Qorin told me I must do whatever I must to make them trust me. Whatever I must. He reminded me even as we dueled. I…” Jon’s voice cracks and he flushes. “I didn’t want to kill him, uncle. But I needed them to trust me.”  
  
“They wouldn’t have if you’d left him alive,” Benjen says. He knows it well. Jon looks relieved that he understands. “So you killed him and rode with them. And when you had the opportunity, you came back to your brothers and your vows. Did you not wish to stay?”  
  
Jon looks sad for a moment. “Part of me did,” he says, and when he looks up at Benjen he sees himself. “They didn’t care I was a bastard. They liked me well enough and…and…” he blushes.  
  
“There was a woman.”  
  
“Ygritte.”  
  
Ben smiles sadly. “Once I told you to father a few of your own bastards before knowing what you were giving up. You see now why I said it?”  
  
“I came back anyway.” Jon’s face is expressionless, but his eyes are pained. “She died. In the raid.”  
  
“I’m sorry to hear it.”  
  
“I—” Jon begins, then looks at Benjen. “I broke my vows and went back to them. And I’ll keep them. It’s no different than with father and my mother.”  
  
 _No one must ever know, Ben. Not ever. He’ll never be safe if anyone knows he is Rhaegar Targaryen’s son._  
  
“No. Not so different.”  
  
 _You’re a bad liar Ben. The worst of us. Honestly, you’re even worse than Ned sometimes._  
  
 _What about when I lie with your voice, Lya?_  
  
“What will become of me?” Jon asks. “I’m an oathbreaker, regardless. Will you have my head?”  
  
 _I promised her no harm would come to him. You’ll help me keep that promise, won’t you, Ben? At the Wall?_  
  
 _I suppose he’s not truly your son, if it’s for her I must promise._  Ned’s eyes had been like father’s then—chips of ice.  
  
“No,” Benjen says at last. “I have need of good men. Not many men come back to their vows as you have, once given a taste for freedom. Tell me of the wildlings. Why do they push south now? What drives them?” Had they told him?  
  
Jon frowns, and for a moment, Benjen is far to the north, in the darkness, in the cold, looking at a pale long face with chips of ice for eyes.  
  
“I think…I think there’s something else out there. Something that scares them south. I wonder…” his voice trails away slowly, and he looks at his uncle, and Benjen sees a flash of recognition in his eyes. “Whatever’s out there…it’s something we must protect ourselves from as well. We protect men. From…from whatever it is. They’re men. They’re not the enemy—or at least, not the Watch’s.”  
  
Benjen nods. “No. Not the Watch’s.” He doesn’t doubt that will go over poorly, but he stands, and extends his hand to Jon’s. “Are you ready?”  
  
Jon stands, nodding eagerly. He’s different now than the pup Benjen had seen at Winterfell, than the green boy he’d left behind at the Wall. “Yes, uncle, I am.”  
  
“Good. I’ll have need of you.”  
  
 _Stark. Stark. Stark._


End file.
